


All I Need In This Life Of Sin

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23807395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Not for the first time, the Doctor finds herself eternally grateful that her wife has mastered the art of the prison break.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 28
Kudos: 207





	All I Need In This Life Of Sin

Judoon prison is, the Doctor discovers, quite unlike anywhere she’s been held before. There’s an absence of guards, an absence of explanations, and – to her considerable consternation – an absence of anything that the sonic appears to work on. Food appears in her cell three times a day, and after ignoring the first few offerings, grey and unappealing looking as they congeal on her tray, she finds herself unavoidably, paralyzingly hungry by the third day, and falls upon the meagre porridge with desperation. It wouldn’t win any culinary awards, and Graham would probably have rejected it outright based on the colour alone, but it clears some of the fog in her brain and helps her to sharpen her concentration, so for that she’s grateful.

The thought of Graham is like a floodgate opening. She’d managed to repress all thoughts of her friends, but with the image of his face comes a slew of anxieties, fears, and guilt, and she wonders about the team back on Earth; prays that they’re looking after each other and living good lives without her. Will they want her back, if she ever manages to escape? Will they want to explore the universe, or will they have settled down and done human things like marriage and babies and jobs by then; will they be locked down by commitments she can never hope to have again, and which change friendships irredeemably? She thinks of Yaz, uncertain and unsure and yet trying to be brave; of Ryan, overcoming his fears and his difficulties for the sake of his friends; and of Graham, living in constant fear of the return of an unseen enemy, and battles tears; wishes she’d spent more time with them in those last few minutes on Gallifrey; wishes she’d given them better advise than the hopelessly generic ‘live good lives.’ But what more could she have said? There wasn’t time to think; wasn’t time to plan; wasn’t time for any grand gestures. She’d not given much thought to how she would die or what words would accompany that moment, and now… well, now it’s clear she won’t need to, as death has been denied to her entirely.

She wonders, idly, what would happen if they left her here for long enough. Would the Judoon object to her regenerating in her cell, particularly given her track record for destruction as she does so? Would they object to her blasting the walls apart, the rock reduced to fragments, and would they object to a regeneration-sick Time Lord floating out into their forcefield? She supposes they might; they might even attempt to bill her for the mess, not that she has any technical means to pay any such financial sanctions. If this is to be, as the Judoon had claimed, ‘whole of life imprisonment,’ they ought really to move her to somewhere more secure; somewhere that won’t be damaged when old age and regeneration set in. Not that she plans on sticking around that long, but plans seem to be evading her at the moment; dancing out of her reach with maddening evasiveness and refusing to settle into anything concrete. She just needs the spark of an idea; the briefest of flashes of inspiration as to how to get out of here. And yet… nothing.

Perhaps it comes with knowing what she’s done; perhaps it comes with knowing that her best friend is dead – vapourised, and almost by her own hand; certainly by her own idea. Perhaps it comes with the shock of finding herself here, or finding herself alone. And yet as she sits in the corner of her cell, forcing herself to ration her grey porridge to last until the next meal and leaning her head back against the roughly-hewn stone, she wonders why her lack of inspiration is not quite as concerning as it should be.

She supposes, in a way, it’s because she feels she deserves this. After all of her lives and all of her crimes, it seems only fair that she is finally punished in a manner that is fit for what she is – a coward, a war criminal, and a monster. She’s wiped out entire races and thought it good; she’s tried to kill – and succeeded in killing – countless others, even while vocally forsaking guns and weapons and all that bring death. She is a walking contradiction; a hypocrite; a harbinger of death who decries the use of violence, while using her words and her cunning to bring death instead. She is not a good person, and perhaps her brains have accepted this; have decided that it is only fair for her to suffer in this cell, and thus refuse to envision any alternative future.

Does the universe really need her, after all? She’d thought once that it did; told herself time and time again that without her, it would surely fall into chaos or disarray; would bring itself to the point of destruction on such a frequent basis that it would cease to be within mere days, weeks or months. And yet the fact of the matter remains that she is who she is; she is guilty of the most heinous of crimes, and perhaps therefore the universe would be better off without her; safer without a Time Lord who considers herself above the laws of time and who has her own ever-evolving moral code, complex and intricate.

Escape does, therefore, seem fruitless. What point is there to continuing to exist out there, when all she has done is bring all that she loves to the point of destruction? She thinks of the friends whose lives have almost been lost, as well as those whose _have_. She thinks of Bill, and Clara; she thinks of the countless others whose faces she sees before she falls asleep, and she whispers words of apology to each and every one of them. This is her punishment, she reasons; this must surely be the crime for which she had been locked up. It would only be just; it would only be right. She accepts her fate with something akin to relief, like she’s greeting an old friend, and somehow that makes things easier.

She becomes used to the food; she looks forwards to the three trays a day of slop, because with it comes an end to her gnawing sense of hunger. She empties her coat of detritus, and uses it to build small, silly inventions to amuse herself. She reads the books she finds laying around in her innermost pockets, and annotates them with thoughts and comments and corrections. She lets her hair grow past her shoulders, and takes to tying it up with a length of bungee cord when she finds it falling into her eyes.

She’s idly wondering, one evening, about trying to use the sonic to singe the ends off, rendering it a more sensible length, when there’s an unholy shrieking, grating noise, and then a crackle, and a figure appears in the middle of her cell. A figure with a mop of curls, who turns to face her and lets out a low, approving whistle.

“Well, if this is yet another wrong cell, then I don’t know if I _want_ to be right.”

“River?!” the Doctor asks, her eyes lighting up at the unexpected but eternally welcome sight of her wife. “What are you… how…”

“No time to explain. The guards know I’m here – I ended up in their control room on my last attempt. Take my hand.”

“But what…”

“I’m the rescue party,” River says, holding out her hand with a look of utter desperation. “Please. I’ll explain, but not now.”

There’s the sound of boots stamping down the corridor outside – lots and lots of boots, accompanied by low, threatening shouts in Judoon. They’re an impatient species at the best of times; she’s sure they won’t let her live if they know someone is intent on breaking her out of prison. Not that she _can_ die, but they’ll undoubtedly enjoy shooting her and watching her regenerate for eternity. The prospect makes her shudder, and she snatches up her coat before reaching for River’s hand.

The door to the cell slams open, River’s fingers lace through hers, and there’s another crackle as they disappear.

A moment later – it can only have been a moment, uncomfortable and agonised though it had been – they reappear in a familiar, softly-lit room, the two of them collapsing in a heap on the floor as the Doctor tries to overcome the pounding in her head and the rising nausea that’s threatening to overwhelm her. Vortex manipulators – cheap and nasty time travel, particularly when one is out of the habit of swanning through time. She shudders, closing her eyes and concentrating on not vomiting on the console room floor.

“Did you get her?” a voice pipes up from what seems like a long, long way away. “River, did you get her?”

“I got her,” River says triumphantly, and a second later she’s helped into a vague sitting position, propped against someone, and a bottle of something is forced into her hands. “Here. Don’t worry about opening your eyes – just drink. It’ll help.”

She takes a tentative sip and finds cool water, untainted by the metallic, chemical tang that had accompanied the prison’s stale offering. After gulping it down, she takes several long, steadying breaths and then opens her eyes, the room tilting unsteadily as she does so.

“Whoa,” River says warningly, wrapping an arm around her to anchor her. “Easy, now. Ryan, have we got any more?”

“Yeah, loads,” Ryan says, and the Doctor blinks hard as she realises that Ryan is here, here with River in the TARDIS, and that…

The room lurches uncomfortably, and she gags, her vision tilting as she does so.

“Don’t,” River says sharply, her hold on her tightening, and the Doctor squints at her blearily. “I know you. Don’t try to think too much yet. You’ve been out of the vortex for months; you need to adjust.”

The Doctor shakes her head, ignoring the advice and instead trying to get to her feet. She stumbles, ungainly and awkwardly, towards a nearby pillar as she does so, her head swimming with vertigo as she attempts to get her balance, and she catches hold of the crystal with relief, leaning her head against it and fighting the dizziness that threatens to overwhelm her.

“Hey,” River says firmly, catching hold of her again and holding her steady as she sways unsteadily against her ship. “For heaven sake, for once in your life, will you please just _listen_ to your _wife_?”

“Shan’t,” the Doctor mumbles, looking around for Ryan. He won’t insist on babying her like this; he won’t insist on taking things slowly. “Ryan?”

“He’s gone to get you some water.”

“And the…”

Yaz and Graham enter her field of vision hesitantly, and the Doctor pulls away from River and takes a determined, tentative step towards her friends. She makes it three paces before her legs fail her and she plunges forwards, Yaz catching her before she can hit the floor.

“You might want to listen to River,” Yaz says with a small, shy smile, lowering the Doctor back to the floor and sitting beside her with her legs tucked underneath her. “We’re all here, alright? You don’t need to worry about us, just worry about you.”

The Doctor shakes her head fiercely, even though doing so makes the nausea worse. “No,” she says defiantly. “No, are you… are you all…”

“We’re fine, Doc,” Graham chips in, leaning down and settling a hand on her shoulder. “We’re just worried about you. No offence, but you look like hell.”

“Kinda liking the hair though,” Yaz leans over and flicks the ends of it, and it takes all of the Doctor’s concentration to reach for Yaz’s hand and take hold of it in her own, squeezing it tightly. “Hey, what’s…”

“I thought I’d…” the Doctor begins, her eyes filling with tears. “I thought I’d lost you all… I really thought…”

“Hey,” Yaz says softly, pulling the Doctor into her arms. “It’s alright, you’re alright. We’re all alright, and all.”

The Doctor begins to cry, turning her face into her friend’s neck and starting to sob in earnest. She’s dimly aware of River standing over them both, settling a hand in her hair and stroking soothingly, but she can only concentrate on the feeling of absolute safety that has settled over her, and the knowledge that at least for now, nothing can hurt her.

“I’ve got…” Ryan’s voice cuts into her sphere of consciousness, and she pulls away from Yaz to see him laden down with mismatched bottles of water. At the sight of her tears, he shoots her a warm, encouraging smile and crosses the room to her, handing her the largest of the lot and then sinking to the floor beside her, putting an arm around her waist as he does so. The physical contact from the four of them is overwhelming, and her tears threaten to overwhelm her. “We missed you,” he tells her with a hint of shyness. “A lot.”

“And I missed… how did…”

“River dropped by one evening,” Graham interjects. “Literally; there I was, watching _Pointless_ , and the next thing there’s this woman dressed like a cat burglar sat in my spare armchair, smirking. I thought I was being robbed or something.”

“Once he’d stopped panicking that she was there to nick all his valuables, he called us,” Ryan chips in. “And River told us what had happened.”

“The TARDIS picked me up after your arrest,” River explains. “I mean, messing with the Judoon… what are you _like_? The ship came and got me – damned sensible of her, really – and I knew I had to get you out of there. The TARDIS had the trace of where they took you, so we just… followed it, really.”

“And she’s a better driver than you are,” Yaz adds with a cheeky expression. “No offence, or anything… but she is.”

“Thanks,” the Doctor smiles wearily at the friendly jab. “Thank you. All of you. You didn’t have to…”

“Don’t be daft,” Ryan counters, rubbing the back of his neck shyly. “Course we did.”

“And we got to meet your wife, so that’s a bonus,” Yaz grins, then raises her eyebrows and adds: “Not that we knew you had one.”

“Yeah, would’ve been nice to have had that warning,” Graham adds with a grimace. “Rather than her just appearing in my gaff and scaring me half to death.”

“Look, did any of you mind?” River asks with a smirk. “No. Now, if you don’t mind… I think it’s time I took my wife to bed, before she passes out with fatigue.”

“Good point,” Ryan reasons. “Very good point.”

“I thought so. Come on, sweetie,” River hauls her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her waist securely. “And in the morning, we can sort your hair out, alright? Sort you out, period. You need some care and attention.”

“Mm hm,” the Doctor mumbles, relief and exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her. “Thank you.”

“We just did what you’d have done for us, Doc,” Graham points out. “Like you said… in a heartbeat.”

* * *

The next morning is overwhelmingly confusing. Waking up is disorientating; she claws her way effortfully back to consciousness, and finds herself not in the dim half-light of her cell, but in a soft bed and a warmly-lit room, her wife’s arm resting across her hip. It takes her a moment to realise that she’s not dreaming and instead recall the rescue; a moment to remind herself that she is – at least for now – free.

“Hello,” River hums softly. “Sleep alright?”

“I did,” the Doctor realises aloud; in her cell, resigned to spending the rest of her lives in prison, she had slept with one eye open, alert to even the smallest of sounds. Here, she had slept soundly, and the difference it makes is invigorating. She has no idea what time it is now, but her body feels less exhausted than it has in months; renewed and refreshed. “You stayed.”

“Of course I stayed,” River rolls her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I have stayed?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor says in a small voice. “You might’ve felt like your job was done.”

“My job is a very long way from being done,” River notes. “You still need a bath, and you are absolutely not doing that on your own – the last thing I need is you fainting halfway through and regenerating because you’ve smacked your head on the edge of the tub. And I don’t see any of your friends volunteering to help with that particular chore, sweetie; they’re lovely, but I think seeing you naked might be a step too far for them.”

“Don’t want you to see me naked,” the Doctor mumbles, suddenly abruptly shy. “It’s…”

“Please,” River rolls her eyes again. “As if I haven’t seen you naked hundreds of times before.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“Well, it should,” River presses a kiss to her forehead. “Come on. Up. Up, out of those clothes, bath, breakfast, haircut. In that order.”

“Can’t we do breakfast first?” the Doctor asks hopefully, but River is having none of it.

“No,” her wife says firmly. “I’m not trying to be unkind, but you smell, and your t-shirt is so grubby that it’s scratching me.”

The Doctor lets out a groan of resignation and then arranges herself into a vaguely vertical position. Her coat is arranged neatly over a nearby chair, and in the amber light of her bedroom she can see how grubby it looks; she offers a silent apology to the article of clothing, and then yanks her t-shirt over her head with gritted teeth. In for a penny, in for a pound; as River says, it’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.

Only it is. It’s several things she hasn’t seen before – at least not on her.

“Nice bra,” River notes, and the Doctor turns her head to conceal her blush. “Where did you get that?”

“Shop in Sheffield. Yaz recommended it.”

“Well, she did a good job,” River nods appreciatively. “So did they. Good to know you’re not completely without guidance.”

“Thanks.”

“Welcome,” River grins at her. “Off with the lot, then I’ll go and stick it all in the wash.”

“Can you at least turn away?”

“Fine,” River acquiesces, turning away and putting a hand over her eyes. “Just chuck clothes at me when they’re off, alright?”

The Doctor can’t help it; there’s something so strange about the situation that she starts to laugh, and she keeps laughing as she strips out of her remaining clothes and chucks them in River’s direction, before bundling herself up in a nearby blanket.

“You can look now,” she says breathlessly, and River removes her hand from her eyes, letting out a fond noise of exasperation and scooping up the dirty articles of clothing, then reaching for her coat. “You might need to empty the pockets.”

River affixes her with a wary look and then starts combing through them, extracting items and laying them down at the end of the bed until there’s a small heap, and the coat no longer clatters when shaken. Atop it all is the psychic paper and the sonic, and the Doctor feels a small surge of relief that they’re returned to their normal capabilities; Judoon prison had especially disagreed with the sonic, and she itches to pick it up now but forces herself to wait as River slips out of the room with her clothes bundled up into a ball.

Looking down at herself, the Doctor notices for the first time the pattern of grime etched into her skin; she flexes her fingers experimentally, watching the filth in the creases of her knuckles bloom and contract as she does so, and she grimaces as she notes River’s point about needing a bath. When her wife returns, she looks up at her eagerly, and something about her expression causes River to smile in return.

“Ready?” she asks, and the Doctor nods. “Still feeling wobbly?”

The Doctor makes a silent appraisal of herself, then waves her hand vaguely in front of her. “Vaguely.”

“Well, you can try to walk, and I’ll be ready to catch you,” River pauses. “And no, you can’t take that blanket in the bath with you.”

The Doctor closes her eyes, biting back a rising sense of dread, and then lets the item of bedding fall, padding on silent, unsteady feet to the bathroom beside her room. River, to her credit, says and does nothing; merely follows her with her hands held loosely at her sides, ready to catch hold of her if at all necessary. The bath is already full and steaming softly in the corner; a thick layer of bubbles sits atop the water, and the Doctor slips into it without hesitation, sinking down until only her head is above the surface, letting out a sigh of contentment.

“Nice?” River asks with a grin.

“Very,” the Doctor leans her head back against the rim, letting out a soft sound of bliss and stretching her arms out in front of her, cat-like. “You know, I’ll be alright for a few minutes, and I could murder a cup of tea.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I’m really not going to drown.”

“I’m not-”

“River,” the Doctor says firmly. “I do still have some basic instincts, and one of them is not drowning. I will be fine for five minutes. I promise.”

“Fine,” her wife acquiesces with utmost reluctance. “If I come back and there’s a different person in this tub because you’ve drowned in the interim, please know that I will be _extremely_ pissed off.”

“Understood,” the Doctor mumbles, then watches as River slips out of the bathroom. Sighing, she sinks down in the water, her head slipping below the surface. There’s nothing but the sound of her hearts and the blood in her ears, and she allows herself to relax, running her hands through her hair and letting it twist into odd shapes around her head. She feels calm; at ease; safe; she rolls her shoulders and lets the hot water soothe away some of her aches and pains.

Rising out of the water only when her body screams for air, she rests her chin on the side of the tub and contemplates the promised hot drink she’s owed.

She needs to wash her hair; needs to start scrubbing the filth off her skin; needs to do so, so many things.

But first…

Tea.

* * *

“You look so different with your hair like that,” Yaz says, munching a piece of toast thoughtfully and looking over at the Doctor, who is garbed in an enormous, floor-length fluffy dressing gown, and is already on her second mug of tea of the day. Her hair is mostly dry, falling in loose waves past her shoulders, and the blonde in it has moved mostly to the ends now, several inches of darker roots having grown over the months spent in captivity. “Is it weird?”

“A bit,” the Doctor grimaces. “It’s in the way.”

“You could French plait it.”

“I could… what?”

“You know,” Yaz looks suddenly shy, but gestures to her head vaguely. “Like mine.”

The Doctor frowns, and beside her, River does the same. “I have no idea how to do that,” River admits. “My hair was never terribly cooperative on that front.”

“I could do it for you,” Yaz notes. “It’s not difficult. I know you’ll still cut it, it’s just… go on, please.”

The Doctor dithers for a moment, then nods in agreement. Yaz beams and gets to her feet, and before the Doctor can take another sip of tea, her friend’s hands settle in her hair, gently combing through it with her fingers and separating it into two. It’s a strangely soothing feeling, and she feels her shoulders relax, the remaining tension leaving her body as Yaz wraps a hair tie around half of her hair and sets to work on the other half with expert fingers.

Beside her, River laughs. “Now do you understand?” she asks, and Yaz pauses for a moment, disconcerted.

“What?” the Doctor asks, barely listening. “Yaz, you can carry on.”

Her friend’s hands flow back into motion, and River grins.

“Why I like it so much,” River clarifies. “Having my hair played with.”

“It’s…” the Doctor’s face scrunches up as she tries to find the right words. “Nice. Really nice. Soothing."

“My mum used to do mine,” Yaz offers shyly. “And Sonya used to make me do hers. Lots of butterfly clips and sparkly hair gel. Good times.”

“I would pay good money to see the Doctor with sparkly hair gel,” River says seriously, and Yaz snorts. “I’m sure we could source some…”

“You’re both terrible,” the Doctor says magnanimously. “Both absolutely terrible. But also… I would like to try some. Please. Sparkly hair gel, sparkly hair clips, sparkly anything. I’m in.”

* * *

The Doctor has to admit, as looks go, this isn’t one of her best. She’s wearing navy blue joggers, rolled up at the ends, and a pair of soft, suede-type slippers that Yaz had called Oofs or Uggs or something similar. Her usual t-shirt is in the wash still, so she’s wearing her pink one with a soft, white long-sleeved top underneath, and she’s devoid of her usual braces, which makes her feel oddly vulnerable and exposed. The top of her hair is arranged artfully into French plaits before splaying out into loose bunches that reach past her shoulders, and clipped into the plaits are a myriad tiny butterfly clips, which sparkle almost as much as the glitter hair gel that River had sourced from somewhere unspecified.

“It has to be said,” River says, contemplating the Time Lady with barely-contained mirth. “This is the sexiest I have ever seen you.”

“Shut up,” the Doctor mutters. “I’m terrifying.”

“You’re really not,” Yaz notes. “You’re really, really not.”

“I’m…” the Doctor sighs. “Do you know what? For now, I’m really not. And that’s fine by me.”


End file.
